Ang Lee

Lee, Ang (äng) [key], 1954–, Taiwanese filmmaker. Lee is one of the few directors who have achieved commercial and critical success in Asia and the United States, and is also unusual in the wide range of genres and themes he has explored. His first three films, Pushing Hands (1992), The Wedding Banquet (1993), and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), all with screenplays by Lee and either bilingual or in Chinese, are deft domestic comedies that revolve around generational and cultural differences. His first English-language feature was an adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1995); it was followed by The Ice Storm (1997), a somber, darkly comic tale of the American suburbs, and Ride with the Devil (1999), a Civil War drama. The Chinese-language martial-arts fantasy Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000; Academy Award, Best Foreign Language Film) was an international hit, but Lee achieved his greatest success to date with Brokeback Mountain (2005; Academy Award, Best Director), about the ill-fated love of two cowboys for each other, based on a story by E. Annie Proulx. The Chinese-language Lust, Caution (2007) is a World War II spy thriller, and Taking Woodstock (2009) revolves around the famous 1969 rock concert. Life of Pi (2012; Academy Award, Best Director), was Lee's first 3-D film, with extensive digital visual effects; it tells of a young Indian man shipwrecked on the ocean in a small boat a Burmese tiger.